The recent Pokemon leaks have revealed a treasure trove of information about unannounced games, including some that won’t be seeing the light of day. The X/Twitter account Centro Leaks has been sharing images and video from many of these games, including a new one today that was under the working title “Project Swallow.” The game was in development for mobile platforms, and seemed to take a page from Nintendo’s cult favorite WarioWare series. Basically, “Project Swallow” would have featured a number of short micro games that all centered around Pokemon themes. Like WarioWare, some of these micro games would have even used assets from past games.
In a post on X/Twitter by Centro Leaks, four different Pokemon themed micro games can be seen. The first of these features Machoke punching a crack in the moon. To successfully do so, the player has to tap the screen when a meter is within the red area. The second game involves moving lily pads to find the Poliwag hiding underneath. The third involves grabbing a Great Ball as it falls from out of the air. The fourth and final of these micro games uses assets from the champion battle in Pokemon Yellow. However, rather than sending their Pokemon into battle, the Rival tosses a Poke Ball which the trainer then has to hit with a baseball bat!
Videos by ComicBook.com
Videos of these micro games can be found in the post from Centro Leaks embedded below.
Mashing up WarioWare with Pokemon is pretty unexpected, but the results look fantastic! This could have made for a very fun game, and it’s unfortunate that The Pokemon Company decided to cancel this project. It’s unclear exactly why they decided to do so, but it’s possible the team couldn’t come up with enough micro game concepts to fill an entire title. At the end of the day, it’s nice fans at least got a chance to see what could have been. The video game industry is unfortunately inundated with promising games that never made it to market for one reason or another. Unless The Pokemon Company decides to offer some clarification on these leaks (which seems unlikely), we’ll all just have to speculate about what happened.
For anyone that sees these micro games and wants to try something similar, Nintendo’s WarioWare series should help you get your fix. The concept is basically identical, but without the Pokemon factor. The WarioWare series has featured callbacks to other Nintendo franchises, including Mario and Zelda, but Pokemon has never made the cut. Given the relationship between Nintendo and The Pokemon Company, it would be nice to see some of these finished micro games get a second chance at life in a future WarioWare game. That seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened!
Are you disappointed that this Pokemon game never ended up released? Do you think a mash-up of Pokemon and WarioWare would have found an audience? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter atย @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky atย @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram atย @Dachampgaming!
